June 2008

June 30, 2008

Forgive me for getting even further behind on the book club that was my idea in the first place. It’s just that I had a dream that Michael Pollan e-mailed me abouttheseposts, and it really freaked me out. The Internet has not proven itself skilled at keeping secrets thus far. But, I mean, please. Like Michael Pollan doesn’t have anything better to do than read food blogs? Here I go confusing fantasy with reality again. My mistake. So, let’s get back down to business.

In Chapter 5, Pollan surprised me by debunking the notion that all processed foods are bad:

“The dream of liberating food from nature is as old as eating. People began processing food to keep nature from taking it back: What is spoilage, after all, if not nature, operating through her proxy microorganisms, repossessing our hard-won lunch? So we learned to salt and dry and cure and pickle in the first age of food processing, and to can, freeze, and vacuum-pack in the second. These technologies were blessings, freeing people from nature’s cycles of abundance and scarcity, as well as the tyranny of the calendar or locale. …As Massimo Montanari, an Italian food historian, points out, the fresh, local, and seasonal food we prize today was for most of human history “a form of slavery,” since it left us utterly at the mercy of the local vicissitudes of nature.”

I don’t know if you know this or not, but the Italians have a penchant for melodrama. Fresh, local food is slavery? Really? Well, tie me up.

Okay, fine. Maybe there is a tiny grain of truth to it. If you’re restricted to a purely local diet and things don’t go your way, nature-wise, you could starve. And, yeah, my relatives did flee their tiny farming village in Italy for a better life in the Land of Plenty, where plenty is defined as lots and lots of stuff you don’t need, and not nearly enough of what you do. I’ve heard farming isn’t the sinecure we all dream of. And maybe it’s not a bad idea to have some reliable backup sources of sustenance and food pathways that make sense.

But still. To be constrained by the limits of the natural world is slavery? I never thought about it that way. But now that you mention it, I really hate gravity. Why, imagine how much better life would be if we weren’t tethered to the earth by invisible bungee cords. And now that I really, really think about it, nature screwed me over big time when it saddled me with the female reproductive system. After all, if nature had its way, I would have been knocked up 11 times to my 2 by now, and then where would I be? Someplace not unlike my idea of hell, that’s where. (Shut up, ovaries, you’re not getting your way on this one.)

I’m not really sure what my point is here, but Michael Pollan is coming through loud and clear. Since we’ve been slaves to nature since the beginning of human history, it’s time we got nature back. Reparations, baby! He’s just given us a free pass to stick it to nature any way we can, on behalf of our ancestors, on behalf of ourselves. Pollution. Deforestation. You name it. Nature isn’t going to ruin itself, people. So, get going.

June 29, 2008

I’ve been hankering for cherries ever since I saw that recipe in Food & Wine. The one with the port-soaked cherries over ricotta. That’s not the kind of thing you can mention in passing and then expect a girl to go about her daily chores in a focused way. No, not when there are cherry trees to locate.

But who in Massachusetts grows cherries? Anyone? Let me save you some legwork. YES. Carver Hill Orchard in Stow does. And so we went.

Tractors are always popular with the kids. Especially shiny, red ones.

We found grasshoppers in the tall grass next to the strawberry fields. I already have my source for strawberries, though, and you can’t tell me that anyone grows them better.

A toad!! It’s like Christmas Day for the Preschooler, and we haven’t even gotten up the hill to where the cherries are, yet.

Now it’s like Christmas Day for me. Rainier cherries, sweet and delicious. We filled a quart and then picked up a pint of Bings from their farm store. Those came from their other orchard where the wind from one of those crazy thunderstorms we’ve been having lately knocked them all down.

Milkweed. Pretty.

Last week may have been it for cherry-picking, but you can pick your own peaches around the last week of July so mark your calendars. They have apple-picking, too, in season of course. This is the same orchard that makes the Box Hill apple cider that Russo’s stocks. Quite good. They also have an ice cream stand, as if grasshoppers, toads, and tractors aren’t enticement enough.

June 26, 2008

Actually, it’s not your brain. Just an egg. Not a run-of-the-mill egg, though. A duck egg. Ducks lay eggs? I know, that’s what I said. Apparently, they do. And they are delicious.

Codman Farm had duck eggs from Palmerino Farms in Sudbury, and as there was only one half-dozen left in the self-serve refrigerator, I felt it was my duty to change that number to zero. I had in mind a salad of farmshare lettuce and radishes sprinkled with sunflower seeds, cilantro, and stale baguette…I mean croutons. Wouldn’t a fried egg sprinkled with smoked paprika improve this salad, I thought?

The answer is yes. But as I said before, you wouldn’t believe me if you saw the photos.

I love fried eggs. Over easy, if you must know. But I have these crappy spatulas in various stages of being melted down, and the eggs always stick to them during the flipping process. Then they tear and bleed precious yolk into the hot pan until they are no longer deliciously runny. It makes me very angry. Buying a new spatula is too easy of a solution to the problem. Inverting a plate over the pan, then flipping it over and sliding the egg back in seems appropriately complicated, but also lame. Fine for tortilla española. Lame for a single egg.

Then it hit me. (Meaning I saw this video.) Just flip it up and back down into the pan. I flip shit all the time, whether it needs flipping or not, just because I can. Is it showing off? I don’t think it is if there’s nobody else in the room. But won’t the impact break the yolk, which is a cardinal sin? No, amazingly. It will not. You don't need a lot of air to get it to flip. Just make sure the egg isn’t sticking to the pan before you do that wrist-flick. Watch the video and practice. It’s fun.

As for how the duck eggs taste, they taste like eggs. Maybe…eggier? It was hard to tell with the vinaigrette and all the other stuff on the salad. But we’ll be having bacon and eggs this weekend. Oh, yes. Of that, you can be sure.

June 25, 2008

June 23, 2008

We were down the Cape again visiting the in-laws and attending an annual family get-together with just about the cutest bunch of kids you’d ever want to see. You know, if you like that sort of thing.

Just a few snapshots:

The bay side is where it’s at for little kids. Tidal pools with hermit crabs and snails to play with at low tide. Fine-grained sand perfect for building drip castles. And lots of open space for running.

Anna, a 12-year-old marine expert (her dad is a Chatham fisherman), tracked down this horseshoe crab, which I snapped before we sent him on his merry way (yes, it was a boy—she checked). The last time we were down here, we saw a fisherman collecting horseshoe crabs, scanning the shallows in his boat and using a pole to lift them out of the water. I thought it was strange because I’d never heard of anyone eating horseshoe crabs. But it’s not the meat they’re after, it’s their blood. Here’s why.

Husband has lots of artists in the family. Here, I’m looking through
Aunt Kathy’s stack of watercolors inspired by her Colorado home: a
strikingly different landscape.

As the tide was coming in on First Encounter Beach, we saw a woman clamming. She explained that you look for small holes in the sand from where the clams are filtering and spitting out water. Then, you use a special rake to get deep enough to dig them out. The rusty ring you see on the bucket lets you know if the clams are big enough to keep.

A fisherman’s platter from Arnold’s in Eastham, where fried fish is an art form. Clams, calamari, shrimp, scallops, oysters, and cod. My lack of self-control came in handy once again.

June 20, 2008

Lately, I’ve been taking the kids fishing on the Charles. One of the benefits of my by-now-long-forgotten jogging regimen is that I was able to scope out some nice fishing spots. You wouldn’t normally think to look behind your supermarket, and yet, at least where I live, you’d be surprised by what you find back there.

The Preschooler has his own little fishing pole with an easy push-button reel and a bobber. I think we got it at Target. For bait, we use hot dogs from the conveniently located grocery store. We stand on a dock or the riverbank, plunk it in, and just wait for something to happen. And when nothing does, we resort to watching the cormorants sun themselves, counting ducklings, and looking for turtles. We catch nothing, but I don’t really care because it’s fun.

Sometimes I use Husband’s fancy-schmancy fishing rod and cast out with a lure, reeling it in with a rhythm that mimics nothing in nature, and praying to God that I don’t get the line tangled up in something, as I’m wont to do. Then, I’d have no choice but to cut the line, and I have no idea how to rig that thing back up again so Husband won’t notice that I’ve been messing with his stuff.

Husband is the fisherman in the family, having fished with his grandfather since he was a kid. Years ago, he offered to teach me how to fish and I could barely contain myself. Fishing seemed like the perfect activity for me. You can get lost in your thoughts for hours at a time while still getting credit for doing something productive. Plus, you get to be outside, and, if you’re lucky, you’ll end up with dinner.

But bad things happen when spouses try to teach each other anything. God forbid we actually learn something from one another at this point in our marriage. For example, I should be learning how to listen carefully and follow instructions, instead of doing what I damn well please. Meanwhile, he should be learning how to be patient, but at the same time not be condescending, which, apparently, is very difficult to do. We always end up driving home in a huff.

However, the whole family went fishing last weekend at Spy Pond in Arlington. The kids had a blast wading in the most-likely-quite-unsanitary water, Husband caught a couple of fish, and I caught my first. See? I can learn things. So, yesterday, I brought the kids back to the banks of the Charles with my newfound confidence, and guess how many fish we caught?

THIRTEEN! Twelve sunfish and a bass. All were dehooked and released (I’m not eating any Charles River fish). The kids are going to get entirely the wrong idea about fishing, but we still had the best time.

June 19, 2008

Boy, do I need to get out without them more often. I felt so light and unencumbered. And it seemed so unbelievably quiet without the whining and the screaming. I mean, yeah, other people’s horrible children were nearby, but they were not my responsibility. And when I ignored them, it actually worked.

The weather was perfect: breezy and cool, with blue sky resting on big, puffy clouds. I saw birds. I saw ladybugs. I even saw the Farmer going back and forth on his tractor. I was careful to wait until he was facing away to blow kisses in his direction, and then pretend like I was too busy with my important berry-picking to notice him on his return trip. Farmer who? I’m sorry, I’m not aware of any farmers in the vicinity.

When I was done stuffing my face with strawberries, the timing worked out just right so that the tractor would be carrying the Farmer toward the end of the rows just as I was walking by. I considered just standing there in his way to see what would happen, but he’s a very focused worker and I‘m not in his good graces as it is. Instead, to increase the odds of acknowledgment, I joined a gaggle of little boys and their Tractor Fan Club, and waved along with them. He waved back. Hooray!

June 15, 2008

Wow, I’m so impressed. There were seven entries for Paper Chef this month, and they all looked really, really good. As you may recall, the ingredients were leeks, English peas, buckwheat, and (local) lamb. You can see the roundup of links and photos here.

Judging was not easy. First of all, I would have eaten every single one of these dishes and gone back for seconds (luckily, this was just a virtual tasting). Also, I didn’t know what half the things were that people made. Here’s a little vocabulary lesson:

How the hell do you judge something like this when you have to keep whipping out the dictionary every five minutes? Clearly, I’m not the best one for the job, but you’re stuck with me so let’s see how I shook the dice.

I was looking for a recipe that integrated all of the ingredients into a cohesive dish, but which was also respectful of the individual ingredients, allowing each one the opportunity to shine. The use of local lamb helped since the theme was local. And, finally, there was the issue of how well I, in all my finite wisdom, thought it would taste.

Eventually, I arrived at a winner. But first, the runners-up in no particular order:

June 12, 2008

The ladybug was doing quite well up until yesterday, the day when he was to be returned to the farm. The Preschooler had diligently provided spinach and lettuce leaves peppered with aphids each day, along with just enough water to keep his worms and the other bugs in his mini-ecosystem happy. He slept with his transparent bug bucket at the head of his bed every night despite my better judgment. And even though my dad tried to drown every living creature inside with a Katrina-like deluge when I wasn’t looking, I was able to downgrade the storm to a Category Two before any long-term damage was sustained. Or so I thought.

At 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the ladybug seemed fine. By 10:30 a.m., he was not fine at all, having fallen from his perch at the top of the bug bucket into the muddy soil below like a tiny, discarded strawberry. I tried to soften the blow to the Preschooler by explaining that he must have been an old ladybug. After all, the Preschooler had just guided a dozen ladybug larvae through the pupa stage and beyond a month earlier. I assured him that the ladybug didn’t die from lack of love.

But really, Ladybug, you couldn’t have held out for just a few more hours? This was not going to endear me to the Farmer, who, by my calculations, had 350 more aphids than usual to contend with. The story was supposed to end with our triumphant return to the farm, ladybug in tow. The Preschooler would release him into the wild with a bittersweet flourish, thereby learning a valuable lesson about love and letting go, while the Farmer would bestow upon me a knowing look that I would interpret as his pledge to be my backup husband. Instead, it was almost as if the ladybug was making some sort of grand statement. A refusal to be a pawn in the elaborate lover’s games of another species. Leave it to me to find the one principled ladybug.

I didn’t want to return to the farm empty-handed (more for the Preschooler’s delicate pride than my own, I swear), so I spent some undisclosed amount of time outside looking for a replacement ladybug. Normally, you can’t walk three paces without being swarmed by ladybugs, but you just try looking for one when you really need it. I was not successful.

So, I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson from all this. If you ever find a ladybug in your CSA produce, don’t tell your farmer.

June 11, 2008

More tips for adapting to, even flourishing under, your new farmshare:

Get a salad spinner. Like it or not, you will be eating a lot of salads. I ate more salads last year than I had eaten in my whole life previously. I did not own a salad spinner and I refused to buy one on principle. The principle that salads aren’t delicious. So, to dry my wet greens, I would wrap them up in a few dishtowels, wrap a plastic bag around the whole thing, and whip my arm around real fast like a windmill on crack. It works. But you look really dumb. And if you let go, well…just don’t let go. But it turns out that salads really are delicious (they are!), so I bought a salad spinner last week to celebrate my one-year anniversary with my farm!

There are very few herbs that can’t be made into pesto. If you can’t use up your basil, parsley, mint, or cilantro before they wilt, make pesto and it will last for a week in the fridge (or practically forever in the freezer).

There are very few vegetables that can’t be made into cold, puréed soups. I live on gazpacho during tomato season. But I’ve made gazpacho-like concoctions with things other than tomatoes in almost every other color of the rainbow, too, not all of them good. Some of them got poured right onto the compost heap, but most of them were delicious.

Whenever you fire up the grill, stick some extra vegetables on there so you have them cooked and ready to eat for the week. I do this a lot with the endless supply of summer squash. And, if you have a charcoal grill, you can harness that leftover heat to roast beets. Nobody wants to turn on the oven in the height of summer for an hour to roast beets (shouldn’t nature be thinking about these things?). So, when you’re cleaning up from dinner, once the grill has cooled down a bit, just wrap up the beets in some foil (you can peel them later), maybe three to a packet, and position them around the perimeter of the rack (not directly over the glowing coals). Cover the grill and forget about them for an hour or two. Three days is too long. They’ll look all puckered and scary, but they’ll be as sweet as candy.

Stop looking at your farmer like that. It’s going to get you in trouble.

When it comes to recipe ideas, the Internet can be your best friend. Epicurious, blogs, even checking out your favorite chefs’ menus online are good sources of inspiration. But I think I’m preaching to the choir here. Books are also good. Any good cookbook will do, but the vegetarians tend to know their way around a vegetable. I’ve also mentioned The Cook and the Gardener before, which arranges its recipes by season and month. And there are several CSA-centered cookbooks that I’m just beginning to explore. From Asparagus to Zucchiniby the Madison Area CSA Coalition is one, and another is Recipes from America’s Small Farms.

Finally, my Neighbor reminded me of what, perhaps, is the biggest adjustment when joining a CSA. The mindset. When you have every possible ingredient available to you at any time of year at the store, you get into the habit of planning the meals first and getting the ingredients second. With a CSA, it’s the other way around. Your lovely farmer does the shopping for you, and so you learn to use what you have. If you’re stubborn like me, it may take an entire summer to get used to this mode of thinking. But, the result is that you suddenly become a much better cook.

June 10, 2008

So, I hear a lot of you guys have joined CSAs this year. Congratulations!! I’m so proud. I’d like to think it was all thanks to me, so I’m just going to keep on thinking that no matter what you say.

A couple of you have asked if I had any advice for how to survive the onslaught of deliciousness that’s about to ensue. Indeed I do. Adopt some children. Here are some other thoughts:

Start cooking as soon as you get home. Just kidding (not really).

There will be bugs. And holes in the leaves from the bugs. It’s annoying—let’s not pretend that it isn’t. But they’re just bugs. They don’t cause cancer or birth defects, and you can see where they are so they’re about a million times better than invisible, toxic chemicals. But, I’m sure you already knew this.

There will also be dirt. You may realize this in theory, but, in practice, you may forget to add extra time for washing and prepping your vegetables. Everything takes a little longer in the beginning, but you’ll get used to it. In the meantime, tell your impatient family to pipe down. Or better yet, put them to work.

Cook stuff in the order in which it wilts. Usually, the green, leafy stuff wilts first, but you’ll find out soon enough. The crisper really does keep stuff crisper (I thought it was just a cute name). Use it.

It’s entirely possible that everyone in your farmshare is a better cook than you. Take advantage. If there’s something you’ve never cooked before, ask. The best way to do this, I’ve found, so you don’t have to admit your ignorance, is to say things like, “God, I hate [insert vegetable here].” There will be audible gasps, and then everyone will try to outdo each other with the best way to prepare said vegetable. Take careful mental notes while making comments like “Tell me you’re kidding” and “Gross!” every so often so they know you’re paying attention. Then go home and make something awesome as if you came up with it yourself. Incidentally, this is also a good way to make friends.

More to come tomorrow. Feel free to share your own advice, too (as long as it's not the same stuff I'm posting about tomorrow). (I'm serious, I'm going to be pissed if I have to rewrite that post.)

June 08, 2008

I was skeptical about attempting a project of this magnitude, and now I know why. It’s hard to cook and paint your kitchen at the same time. The paint keeps dripping into your food, and the food keeps splattering into the wet paint. It’s not the smooth operation you would expect.

The result is that I haven’t cooked in two weeks. I thought I’d grill, but not in this heat. Screw that. Instead, hot dogs and fish sticks have made multiple appearances. There was a trip to Friendly’s, pizza delivery, mediocre Chinese take-out (seemingly the only kind of Chinese take-out in these parts), and dinner at the snack bar at the local Little League field. I can just feel all the carbon in my body becoming corn-ified.

In order to get a decent meal, one of our most recent strategies has been to show up at other people’s dinner tables practically unannounced (Hi BFF!). And following the scent of neighborhood barbecues, wherever they may lead (Hi Neighbors!). Another saving grace has been our CSA produce. Luckily, the sink is in the already-painted part of the kitchen, so making a salad isn’t hard. Making a radish sandwich isn’t hard. And adding raw julienned bok choy to your mediocre Chinese shredded pork in bean sauce isn’t hard, either.

But I need to get back to cooking and soon. So I’m painting that ceiling in the 100°F heat tomorrow even if it kills me.

June 05, 2008

Picture this. It’s been a day of unrelenting rain, but as the kids and I approach the downhill slope leading to the tent, it suddenly stops. The sun peeks through the clouds. A giant rainbow forms before my very eyes. The 2008 Summer CSA Theme Song is playing in my head at top volume. The kids start running down the hill. I catch sight of the Farmer, so I start running, too. The kids fall down. I hurdle right over them. And then, just as I’m about to launch myself into the Farmer’s unsuspecting arms (cue sound of record player needle scratching across vinyl), another CSA member starts talking to me, blocking my trajectory.

Well, I didn’t want to be rude, so we exchanged pleasantries. But all the while, I could sense the Farmer withdrawing and eventually disappear. No, wait. Come back. He did eventually come back, but our long and passionate embrace only took place in my mind. So, yeah, it’s pretty hard to live up to my expectations at this point.

I was bagging my 4 heads of lettuce, bok choy, radishes, and spinach, when I noticed a bright red ladybug on one of the leaves. I quickly handed it over to the Preschooler, for he loves insects with a fervor that even I would find hard to understand. He ran over to show the Farmer who, in his calm way, suggested that he leave the ladybug on the farm to do his good work eating aphids.

Uh-oh.

I could tell by the crestfallen expression on the Preschooler’s face that this was never part of his agenda. He planned to add the ladybug to his cache of inchworms he collected over the weekend, along with some woodlice and a shield bug I captured for him yesterday, and we would all live happily ever after in a house infested with bugs.

There was no way around it. I would have to take sides. But whose? In one corner was the Preschooler doing his best not to burst into tears while I made a convincing argument for letting the ladybug go. In the other corner was the Farmer looking particularly devastating. Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Why, yes. Yes, it does.

I ran some quick numbers in my head, and the Preschooler kept coming out on top. I banged on my calculator really hard, but numbers are numbers. We would be taking the ladybug home no matter what. How many aphids can one ladybug eat, anyway? (Note: turns out ladybugs can eat as many as 50 aphids per day. Crap.) Still, I got the Preschooler’s back while he absconded with his prisoner.

On the drive home, I brokered the following deal. We’d keep the ladybug for a week, feeding him aphids from our spinach, and if he survived the noise and chaos of our home, we’d return him to the farm next week.

Or. Or maybe I’ll hold that ladybug hostage until some ransom demands are met.

June 04, 2008

I don’t know if you knew this, but I won the Paper Chef competition last month. And it was a nail-biter, too, because it was me against, uh…one other person. See, I don’t always plan things poorly.

The other contender was Ilva at Lucullian Delights, who runs the event. But lest you think that made it easy for me to win, just know that Ilva can cook me under the table any day of the week. Any day but that particular day, I guess. Or maybe last month’s judge was just feeling generous.

According to the rules, I become the judge of this month’s games. Which means I’ve spent the better part of the day drunk on power. Every time anyone in the house opens his mouth, I bang my meat mallet on the countertop and yell things like, “Order in the court” and “Contempt!” Whoever wins Paper Chef this time is going to have to pry my makeshift gavel out of my arthritic hands. It won’t be hard, I can assure you.

Without further ado, the ingredients for June (selected randomly from your suggestions) are:

English peasLeeksBuckwheat

And the fourth ingredient of my own choosing:

Local lamb

The lamb doesn’t have to be local, but you just might curry favor with your judge if it is (or if any of your other ingredients are) because this month’s theme is “local.” Big freaking surprise, I know. You can define local however you want, but within your own country is a good start. So, mention the names of your farm sources in your post. If you don’t have access to local lamb, don’t fret. You will not be disqualified. This is just a way to get some names out there since the small farmers don’t generally have any kind of PR budget unlike their well-funded competition.

So, get cooking. For the love of god (or whoever shames you), it doesn’t have to be a clean fight, but let there at least be some kind of fight involved this time. The official rules are at the new Paper Chef blog, but, basically, just make something with these four ingredients, post about it by midnight on Tuesday, June 10, and send a link to Ilva. Okay? Simple enough?

June 03, 2008

Let’s see, on my supposed “blog vacation,” I ended up posting four times instead of the usual five to 10. Good job, Tammy. Way to enforce some boundaries.

Anyway, I thought you might be interested to know how the kitchen is coming along, as if you couldn’t already guess. The kind of progress I make is very hard to measure, but this conversation with Husband ought to give you an idea:

Me: Wow, I’ve used two whole tubes of caulk so far. Does that seem like way too much caulk for one room?

Him: I don’t think there’s any such thing as too much caulk.

Me: Really? But maybe caulking in the gap between the baseboards and the floor was a little extreme.

June 02, 2008

I just got back from a long weekend down the Cape, and, upon my return, there was an e-mail from Drumlin saying our first CSA pickup would be on Wednesday. As in this Wednesday. The day after tomorrow.

Holy crap! So soon? The fields were a complete wasteland not two months ago! What happened? Not to mention that I’m not even close to graduating from my Program, yet. What do I do? Should I get my hair done? Put on a dress? No? Too obvious? I have to at least brush my hair, though. I learned my lesson. Goddamnit, where’s my brush? WHERE IS IT?

Oh, wait. First, the pictures. I have to burn all the dirty pictures like this one:It was fun while it lasted, California, but you’re dead to me now. You hear that? Dead. To. Me.